Connecticut western news., 1887-11-16
NEW POSTAL TREATIES.
Some of the Commercial Advantages
 to be Gained.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7.-The commercial ad- vantages likely to accrue to the United States from the successful negotiations of parcel post treaties with the Governments of South and Central America and the West Indies, are attracting the attention of American export ceived at the Post Office Department bearing upon the subject. The postal treaty with Mexico, entered into July 1 last, is cited as illustrating the benefits to be expected from 8 wide extension of commercial inter- course, freed from the most embarrassing of the present Custom House restrictions The Treaty with Mexico was not by any means model convention. It applied only to letter postage and not to parcel post, and perpetua- ted many vexatious Custom House require ments. Experience has suggested a large num- Der of improvements. The treaties now in course of negotiation with Guatemala, British Honduras, Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Columbia, and numerous other countries, are framed on basis much broader and more fa- yorable to American merchants. But notwlth- standing the imperfections of the Mexican treaty its immediate advantages have been very marked. Prior to the negotiation of that treaty the goods imported into Mexico from the United States through the Fl Paso office did not exceed $100 month In September last the imports into Mexico from the United States through the same channel amounted to S54, ,0OO.
 
 of the commercial intercourse is found in the absence of any system of mutual monetary exchange between the two countries. Every S1O0 worth of goods bought in the United States by Mexican merchants costs them near ly or quite $40 in New York, irrespective of the duties they are required to pay in their own country. The present rate of exchange is from B to 40 per cent. Just there comes ill the question of the practicability and deslra- bility of establishing some mutual system of monetary exchange. The Mexican sil- yer dollar, though containing za1san as much ae the United States, is only worth 80 cents in Texas, On the other hand, the American standard silver dollar, which passes for its face value in Texas, is only worth 80 cents in Mexico. forcible illustration of the absurd ity of these different standards of value be- way: Suppose some barroom loafer in the town of Fl Paso, Texas, should provide himself with Mexican dollar and a supply of ferry tickets. He could cross the Rio Grande to Paso del Norte. on tho Mexican side, and take a twenty-cent drink, exchange for his Mexican dollar, there valued at par. Crossing back to the American side, he could tender bis standard American dollar for another twenty-cent drink and receive a Mexican dollar at 80 cents in change. In this way he could go on until either his silver dol lar or the coatings of his stomach wore out, without any expenditure except for fcrriage
 The subject is receiving serious attention both at the hands of representatives of Mexico and of the United States as to whether monetary union cannot be established which will allow an order drawn in Mexico City to be paid in New York in American dollars, and an order drawn in New York to be paid in Mexico City in Mexican dollars. The only loss either country would sustain would fall upon the country which exported the most goods to the other; and the country which had the balance of trade in its favor could